Alphabet’s Google is developing new tools designed to boost subscriptions for news publishers. It follows a similar olive branch from Facebook to an industry that has seen the digital behemoths take over the online advertising market.

Google’s latest foray arrives on three fronts. The first is a revamp of its feature, called “first click free,” that allows readers to access articles from subscription publications through search. Google is also exploring publishers’ tools around online payments and targeting potential subscribers. It’s all part of Google’s broader effort to keep consumers and content-makers returning to the web, the lifeblood of its ads business.

Initially, Google is testing the tools with New York Times Co. and the Financial Times. But Richard Gingras, Google’s VP for news, says the search giant is talking to dozens of other outlets as media companies move toward online subscription models.

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By glsoane@adage.com(Garett Sloane)

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Movie studios are considering whether to ignore the objections of cinema chains and forge ahead with a plan to offer digital rentals of films mere weeks after they appear in theaters, according to people familiar with the matter.

Some of the biggest proponents, including Warner Bros. and Universal Pictures, are pressing on in talks with Apple and Comcast on ways to push ahead with the project even without theater chains, the people said. After months of negotiations, the two sides have been unable to arrive at a mutually beneficial way to create a $30 to $50 premium movie-download product.

The leading Hollywood studios, except for Walt Disney Co., are eager to introduce a new product to make up for declining sales of DVDs and other home entertainment in the age of Netflix. They have discussed sharing a split of the revenue from premium video on demand, or PVOD, with the cinema chains if they give their blessing to the concept. But the exhibitors have sought a long-term commitment of as much as 10 years for that revenue split, which the studios have rejected, the people said.

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Without Donald Trump, Twitter could lose almost a fifth of its value.

That’s the conclusion of Monness Crespi Hardt & Co. analyst James Cakmak, who said that the social media company would see as much as $2 billion in market value wiped out if @realDonaldTrump quit tweeting.

It’s not that the president’s defection would touch off a mass exodus, lowering the number of “monetizable” daily active users, Cakmak said in an interview. Instead, losing its most prominent user would hit Twitter’s intangible value and lead to what’s known as multiple compression.

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Professional video gaming is the next big thing. How big that is, though, is hard to say. Some estimates pegged it as a $493 million industry in 2016, others said it was nearly twice as big. As for the audience, some say it’s 85% male, others say it’s 56% male. No one really knows.

Nielsen says it’s ready to figure it out. The audience-measurement company is introducing a new division, Nielsen Esports, to quantify the rapidly growing industry for teams, sponsors, advertisers and publishers.

“Nielsen knows sports, Nielsen knows games, and we obviously know audience,” says Nicole Pike, VP of Nielsen Games, who will co-lead the new division. “To us that’s the perfect confluence of expertise to enter esports.”

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By glsoane@adage.com(Garett Sloane)

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When white supremacists plan rallies like the one a few days ago in Charlottesville, Virginia, they often organize their events on Facebook, pay for supplies with PayPal, book their lodging with Airbnb and ride with Uber. Tech companies, for their part, have been taking pains to distance themselves from these customers.

But sometimes it takes more than automated systems or complaints from other users to identify and block those who promote hate speech or violence, so companies are finding novel ways to spot and shut down content they deem inappropriate or dangerous. People don’t tend to share their views on their Airbnb accounts, for example. But after matching user names to posts on social-media profiles, the company canceled dozens of reservations made by self-identified Nazis who were using its app to find rooms in Charlottesville, where they were heading to protest the removal of a Confederate statue.

At Facebook, which relies on community feedback to flag hateful content for removal, the social network’s private groups meant for like-minded people can be havens for extremists, falling through gaps in the content-moderation system. The company is working quickly to improve its machine-learning capabilities to be able to automatically identify posts that should be reviewed by human moderators.

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Own the customer experience. Represent the voice of the customer. Uncover data-driven insights and implement tactical solutions based on those findings. Create a brand. Understand an ever-changing digital landscape. Launch ad campaigns. Manage marketing agencies. Infuse the brand into a growing number of touchpoints, online and off. Select and oversee an alphabet soup of DSP, DMP, CRM, ESP. And on, and on and on.

The purview of the chief marketing officer has become an amorphous, every-growing amalgam of traditional marketing, technology management (vendor selection, implementation and execution) and, of course, the creation of brilliant ad campaigns.

Why do we keep reading about how CMOs last less than two years in their position? Because nobody can do all of those things.

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Alibaba Group’s quarterly revenue rose 56% from the comparable year-earlier period, powered by Chinese consumers’ thirst for buying cheaper and higher-quality goods online.

Revenue at China’s biggest e-commerce company hit $7.4 billion in the three months ended June, the company said.

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. has bolstered its dominance in e-commerce by improving the advertising algorithms it uses to generate revenue from brands trying to reach the 466 million active consumers on its online platforms. That is buying time for billionaire Chairman Jack Ma to venture into traditional retail, a sector he wants to revamp via experiments like HeMa Supermarket, a fresh foods store that also provides online grocery delivery.

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